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anticipated financial distress bothering him. He still wanted, very much, to read more about the experimental smartsuit stolen from Spoonbender’s Museum. No doubt lingered in his mind about who the two researchers were who’d been killed testing the device.
    But what could be dangerous about a smartsuit?
    And why would anyone—without jumping to any undue conclusions, he also felt confident he knew who the thief had been—why would his grandfather want to steal one?
    And, Berdan thought about himself, what could he do about it if he were right? Who’d listen to him? He was just a fifteen-year-old kid, after all, without any money, in all probability without any job, and without a leg to stand on where his guesses were concerned. A surmise, he appreciated (and in this he was ahead of many adults), even based on the strongest of feelings, wasn’t the same as a fact.
    Knees stiff, Berdan began to get to his feet. Maybe the best thing was to tell Mr. Meep about the whole thing. Maybe the old chimpanzee could tell him what to—
    “ Ow! ”
    Berdan had hit his head again, this time on the underside of an overhanging closet shelf. All sorts of odds and ends which had been stored on it began tumbling down onto his surprised and unprotected shoulders. The worst, amidst a hailstorm of rolled-up socks, sweaters, underwear, and spare shoes, was a sizable box, upholstered in thick, coarse-grained reddish leather, which struck him on the upper arm, leaving what he was sure would be a bruise. If it had fallen on his head, he thought, he’d have been knocked out cold.
    Being as neat as he could, Berdan began putting everything back. The box—more of a briefcase than anything else—was fastened shut by means of some sort of powerful, hidden catch. The thing possessed no visible outer locks nor any hinges. He shrugged and was just about to slide it back in place, as well, when he noticed, above the handle, a name embossed in the leather and inlaid in gold:
    MacDougall Bear
    This had belonged to his father!
    Beneath the swiveling luggage handle a metal plate, two inches on a side with a shallow, bowl-shaped depression in its center, had been set into the leather. Having absorbed most of what he knew, like all kids everywhere, from adventure stories his implant summoned up for him, he recognized an old-fashioned thumbprint-activated lock. Which meant, of course, since his father was long dead, no one had ever been able to open this case again without destroying it. And themselves in the process if spy movies contained any truth at all.
    Still, Berdan wondered what was in the case. It was heavy enough. Some great weight inside shifted back and forth, but without much noise, when he tilted it. He laid an idle right thumb in the depression, and was astonished when he heard a dull clank and the top of the case popped partway open.
    Berdan sat down on the floor again, this time well outside the closet, where the light was better and there were fewer long, hanging leaves to tickle the back of his neck. He laid the leather case in his lap, pivoting the lid back all the way. Inside, on top, was a large yellow plastic envelope with the inscription:
    For Berdan Bear on His Twelfth Birthday
    Berdan Bear: although he’d been told this was the name he’d been born with, the boy couldn’t remember anybody ever calling him by it. It wasn’t such a bad name, at that. When his parents had died, his grandfather had adopted him and… but his twelfth birthday had been three years ago! With shaking hands—and without noticing what else might be inside the case under the thin cover of tissue plastic which had rested beneath the envelope—Berdan turned back the flap.
    * * *
    Dear Son,
You can’t know, of course, why I pressed your baby thumb into a briefcase lock this morning before leaving for the lab and will never remember I did it. It’s probably a silly, unnecessary precaution, but there’s some amount of risk in everything worthwhile, and